MIKEL secures 3-year contract with the Navy

A woman-owned, Fall River-based technology development and services company has secured a three-year, $16.5 million Navy contract to provide support services at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center.

Beth Perdue

A woman-owned, Fall River-based technology development and services company has secured a three-year, $16.5 million Navy contract to provide support services at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center.

MIKEL Inc. president Kelly Mendell said the contract is to manage labs and equipment for the Undersea Warfare Combat Systems Department onsite at NUWC in Newport, R.I. Labs are operated 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the company said in a statement.

"There is a jolt of excitement around here. It really has given us optimism about the future," said Mendell. "We look forward to delivering innovative and cost effective service solutions with highly competent people and state of the art technologies."

About 35 people are being hired to do the work, Mendell said, most from the company that had previously been doing the work in accordance with a provision in the contract.

While she couldn't be specific about why MIKEL won the contract over a company already in place, Mendell said, "I can tell you that we put in our best effort and we really were aggressive on cost. And I think that helped us."

The contract "is a nice complement to what MIKEL already does," she said.

While the contract award announcement was being made as the government went into partial shutdown, Mendell did not expect the company's work to be affected by it. One impact from sequestration and other government cuts that she has seen has been longer turnaround times from the government in making contract awards, she said.

MIKEL is principally engaged in research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products, and services for US Navy submarine combat and sonar systems. The company has multiple contracts with the Navy, including two with NUWC.

Contract work will take place in Newport. In addition to Fall River, the company has offices in Middletown, R.I., Honolulu, Hawaii, Washington, DC and Fairfax, Va.